General Wargaming

Today I get the chance to play my first wargaming session with Mr.Andrea. I was virtually destroyed and lost two times. But it was great fun and I have the plan to free some of my older figures from the showcases and base them for a revange fight. Thank you for the nice afternoon.

MABO wrote:Today I get the chance to play my first wargaming session with Mr.Andrea. I was virtually destroyed and lost two times. But it was great fun and I have the plan to free some of my older figures from the showcases and base them for a revange fight. Thank you for the nice afternoon.

Details???? Rules used? Scenario? Some game highlights????

You don't get away that easily.

BTW "winning" is, evidently, of great importance to some but we 'real wargamers' know, most of the fun is in the spectacle, in the comradeship and in the feeling we're re-creating history.

We played a ficton game Marius Romans against Gauls. Rules etc. must be specified by Mr. Andrea who is the master of the game.

Excellent. Your game certainly looks the part. If I can ever be of use with advice, recommendations etc, don't hesitate to ask. And talking about gaming is nearly as much fun as the actual gaming.

The diorama & figure painting community is well represented here but wargaming has a much lower profile at Bennos (an observation not a criticism, BTW). If you wish to know of wargaming forums, for instance, I can give you links (including to the excellent German run 'Lead Adventures Forum').

We used DBA 3.0 ruleset. Marian Romans II/49 vs Gallics II/11. Two matches, we plays the Romans in turn, with the Romans always been the defender. Not much highlights: it was mainly test matches, to familiarized with the rules. I can say Jan learned fast and lost the second game just because of my lucky dice. His legionaries caught my Gauls in a mortal grip, from which they could only escape thanks to their bravery (and a long series of 5 and 6).

I promise a more detail report for the next matches. It will be Punic wars. I see elephants stomping legionaries

Mr. Andrea wrote:We used DBA 3.0 ruleset. Marian Romans II/49 vs Gallics II/11. Two matches, we plays the Romans in turn, with the Romans always been the defender. Not much highlights: it was mainly test matches, to familiarized with the rules. I can say Jan learned fast and lost the second game just because of my lucky dice. His legionaries caught my Gauls in a mortal grip, from which they could only escape thanks to their bravery (and a long series of 5 and 6).

I promise a more detail report for the next matches. It will be Punic wars. I see elephants stomping legionaries

Thank you for the details. DBA are a tried & tested rule set. I very much like reading (& looking at the photos) from a good game.Congratulations on your win. I would wish you future luck with your dice....but not too much as Mabo needs to win sometimes too.

To be honest, I've never used DBA/3.I've had plenty of games using the first 2 versions of these rules, though.

Would you agree that their appeal lies in:

1. You don't need masses of figures (only 12 units a side or take it up to 36 units if you want to use the BBDBA variant)

2. Simple rules, easy to understand and start gaming.......but they are open to a great deal of tactical finesse by the astute gamer. In other words, they initially look like Draughts but in reality they're closer to Chess.

3. They give a quick game; generally a lot less than 2 hours

4. Looks & feels like what an Ancient battle should

There are literally hundreds, probably thousands of rule sets. Some are great, some awful. I'm glad you've got a set that you like.

I totally agree on all points. I would add that:- difference between versions is minimal (I think at the different rule version of Warhammer 40k I used to play until few years ago!!!!); - one can build an army with a couple of boxes, which has little impact on the wallet- house rule variants can be easily adopted, adjusting the core rules to personal tastes- the basing system can be easily adapted to other ruleset, with very small modification if any (e.g. black powder, impetus, pike&shotte, triumph, to the strongest, etc.)